In a Federal Register notice published Wednesday, Dec. 18, FMCSA officials are proposing changes to the requirements to receive a vision waiver. Currently, truckers with a stable and treated vision condition are required to have three years of intrastate driving before they are allowed to apply for an interstate vision waiver.

The Federal Register notice proposes two options to the current three-year intrastate driving requirement.

The first would be to reduce the driving requirement to one year of intrastate driving. The second is to eliminate the driving requirement completely. In the notice, agency officials noted that eliminating the driving requirement would be in line with the requirements in the diabetes exemption program.

The notice also proposes to eliminate the driver’s sworn statement of medical fitness. Instead of a self-declaration, FMCSA proposes that the driver undergo an examination by a medical examiner and receive a medical certificate declaring that the driver is physically qualified to drive if the medical certificate is accompanied by a federal vision exemption.